WWF urges government to support farmers

Eblex industry development manager Chris Lloyd said: “We welcome the WWF and FEC view that farmers will play a pivotal role in providing sustainable food for the future, and that to do this they will need support and help. Too often this is overlooked.
 
“The focus for the past 50 years has been to produce cheap and plentiful food. We welcome a wider debate on how much our food should cost us, and how it should be produced. Returning a fair price back down the supply chain is the best way to encourage farmers to invest in more efficient production, with lower consequential impact on the environment.”
 
NFU chief livestock adviser Peter Garbutt added: “This report is a useful contribution to the debate about the relationships between food production, consumption and the environment. These relationships are inherently complex, but it is clear that from producers to consumers, we all have to do our bit to address climate change. The livestock sector is already committed to addressing its emissions as part of the Greenhouse Gas Action Plan and focusing on how we can become more efficient, producing more with fewer resources is sensible business practice.”

The WWF and FEC paper also states that the government should encourage people to eat less meat in order to achieve a healthier and more sustainable diet. But at Eblex, Lloyd pointed out the importance of livestock farmers in the country’s environmental balance.

“Livestock and livestock farmers play a unique dual role as food providers and maintainers of our countryside and its rich biodiversity,” he said. “Beef and sheep production accounts for 41.5% of the farmed area of this country. The large majority of this is in upland areas, where cropping is not viable, or lowland areas with a specific environmental value where alternative crops would impact on the biodiversity the livestock maintain. A viable beef and sheep sector is important to ensure farmers are in place to continue this management of a countryside we want to see.”

> WWF develops sustainable diet plan

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